Which will be the major thrust areas for Praj Industries
in the near future?
Energy and environment are the prime focus areas for
Praj. Our solutions are diversified across the sectors of
ethanol, breweries, water and wastewater treatment,
critical process equipment and systems, bio nutrients and
agribusiness. We will focus on water and waste water
treatment and critical process equipment and systems our
emerging business portfolios in the year 2013.

Presently, these businesses have been contributing below
10 per cent to our overall business; however in the coming
year we intend to increase it to 30 per cent. We see a
strong demand from both these segments in the Indian as
well as international markets

How is Praj positioned in the market to provide water and
wastewater solutions? How do you plan to move ahead?
Regardless of huge competition in water treatment
business we have distinctly positioned ourselves in the
field of providing complete solutions for water and waste
water treatment.

We offer innovative technology driven solutions in this
sphere to the industry particularly in the field of Zero
Liquid Discharge (ZLD), reduce recycle and reuse of
water. With increasing water stress, these technologies
are going to be very crucial for the industrial growth and
the manufacturing industries would require real solutions
to address the issue of water.

We have recently provided solution to the Thirupur Dyeing
industry for treating the effluent. We had commissioned
a pilot plant to demonstrate the process. The plant was
later endorsed by the regulatory authorities and is fully
functional now.

We have leveraged our strength in this business with
the recent acquisition of Neela Water Systems, a
Mumbai based water solution company to enter the high
purity water segment. There is a very high demand for
high purity water from the pharma, food and cosmetics
industries which are growing strongly irrespective of the
overall industrial slowdown. As the consumption grows in
these areas, we see immense scope for us in the market.
We are very focused on high purity water, process water.
We are significantly focused and in this line we do not see
much of competition.

What about the critical process equipment business?
We offer critical process equipment for range of industries
across the major platforms - one which is highly complex,
high temperature and high pressure design platform of
chemicals and oil and gas industries, and the second
is hygienic platform of pharma, food, beverage and
cosmetics industries.

Both these platforms are very niche and require very high
levels of disciplined and international quality engineering
design and process engineering skills and also high level
of fabrication capabilities.

How important are the international markets for your
emerging businesses?
International market is one of the mainstays of our
business and we have built a business of significant
size and complexities globally. We are present across
five continents in over 50 countries which is a part of
our global strategy to mitigate the risks with sizable
businesses across the verticals of ethanol, breweries,
water and waste water treatment.

The geographical spread and presence across various
industrial verticals curbs our risks significantly. We are
very selective in choosing the markets and enter the
ones where we see technology gaps which can be an
opportunity for us.